Strange fungus on mulch

I am not sure that this is the right place to post this, but perhaps some of you in the Carolinas have seen this problem.

Yesterday afternoon, I saw a strange yellow area on the mulch (shredded bark), it was a bit darker than lemon and not sticky but sort of gooey. This morning, there are several patches of this stuff that now looks like light baked bread, sort of a little foamy. When you touch it, it is yellow inside, same yellow as yesterday. The mulch has been in place for about two months.

Any ideas as to what it is, where it might have come from, what damage it might do to plants, and how to get rid of it?

I'll post two pictures.

Second picture

i just got the same stuff a couple of days ago. I have no idea what it is. Can't be a good thing. Mine is in full sun too.

it looks like dog vomit slime mold. yes, i didn't make that up. it doesn't really hurt anything, but you can spray it with baking soda water and it will dry up and go away.

That is interesting. How much baking soda to how much water?? I'd still like to know where it comes from though. Does anyone know?

it just pops up under the right conditions. i usually have a little quart sprayer bottle with a teaspoon or two of baking soda in it anyway, so that's what i use.

I have also read where you can just flip it upside down and it will dry up and disappear. It is not nearly as wet and slimy as it looks. I've tried this and it works. You must have had some rain up there in NC. We have been dry for many weeks and we haven't any kind of mold right now.

well thats one good thimg that has come out of this drought. last year i had that too, so i just threw it and some of the surrounding mulch away. i have been wondering what it was for a while. well you just learn somethimg new every day, dont you?

lol, yep! drought here too. and smoke and fires. aarrgh

Yep - it's that dog vomit stuff. I got it last year (along with some sort of mushroom called "elegans" that looked anything BUT). Flipping it worked for me too.

yeah its been really smoky here too the past few days and i think they are getting strict about burning stuff here.

we've had a no-burn ban going for some time now. the moon is so orange tonight with the smoke over it. it's pretty in a strange way. i feel so bad for the wildlife, the birds, everything with new babies. we have a slight chance of rain this weekend. they always say that. i feel like the garden hose is part of my hand.

The light was really unusual here this morning from the smoke. I wish I had better photographic skills, I would have loved to record that color in the air.

The interesting thing is that we have been bone dry until yesterday when it started drizzling. So my mold must have come just from watering. We ended up torching it. It turn sort of caramellized on the top, but nothing else. Then the next day, I scraped it up and put it in the trash. It was still yellow-gooey on the bottom, caramellized on top and inbetween was a layer of perhaps dark olive/grayish, which could have been the spores part of it, don't know. Everybody laughs when I tell them the name.

Slime molds like hardwood mulch. I've heard if the mulch has a higher content of bark, it doesn't occur so much. Its considered pretty innocuous, aiding in the decomposition of mulch, but its not pretty. It won't hurt your plants though unless its right on top of them.

Flipping it over is a great idea! I usually just scrape it up and toss it. I'll do the flip from now on.

I found a weird red and kinda whiteish fungus under my rosemary bush yesterday - I should have snapped a photo! It was a 6" tall stalk thing (that was pinkish-ish/white) with a strange darker red cap like an.... uncircumsized.....well you know. That's the 'elegans' or Elegant Stinkhorn fungus I think - you're right, not elegant, instead somehow disturbing and definitely stinky and a bug magnet! Yuck!

YUCK! We fought those all last summer. We went on a "stinky mushroom" hunt every day. The yucky stuff on the tip is the spores and flies land on it and then wherever they land deposit new spores. You have to dig those up and dig around near where they are and you will find bunches of little white balls that are where they start. Get those too!!

Thanks for the tip pegzhere! No wonder it came right back the next morning. I'm off to remove it again - and will be looking for those hidden balls too this time!.

I put down lime to get rid of those last year. They like acidity so you can lime them out if you don't over do it.

Hey CoreHHI -

Lime takes care of the slime mold or the stinkhorn (or both)?

Stinkhorn but lime seems to kill off most fungus. Just don't dump around an acid loving plant.

I got some more of my favourite: dog vomit. What kind of lime do you put down? Powdered? Slack? I don't know anything about lime.

Help, what kind of lime can I try, we keep getting more every day.

Espoma makes a fast acting lime, perhaps that would work.

Thank you, ardesia, I will look for it.

Well, I could not find Espoma at the box stores, but finally we stopped at a small local nursery and store and they sold me horticultural dehydrated lime and said that would work.

We sprayed the latest crop of mold with a little bit of water and then sprinkled lime on it. I don't know if it is true but I thought I smelled a mushroomy odor almost immediately - do I have crazy imagination or is that indeed possible (btw, I read science fiction!!)? DH smelled it also, and he does not have a good nose.

I'll report tomorrow whether there is any noticeable change.